A methodological analysis of developmental studies of identity conservation and equivalence conservation.

Abstract

The discrepant findings which have been reported during recent years on the order of emergence of identity conservation and equivalence conservation are reviewed. An analysis of the procedural details of the conflicting studies revealed that the discrepant findings are probably the result of a measurement error (judgments-plus-explanations response criteria) and a sampling error (older subject samples) routinely committed in studies reporting that identity and equivalence do not emerge in a fixed order. Some new data from an experiment in which these two errors were controlled provided support for this conclusion. The general consequences of measurement and sampling errors for concept development studies were discussed.

The logic of interpreting evidence of developmental ordering: Strong inference and categorical measures.

“…Categorical measures do not, of course, necessarily imply that the underlying variables themselves change categorically. If a continuously developing variable is assessed with a categorical measure, the categorical measure essentially imposes a success-failure cutoff point on the underlying variable (see Brainerd, 1977, andHooper, 1975, for a discussion of issues in placing the cutoff point). For example, Cornell, Heth, and Alberts (1994), in a study of place recognition, asked children who were either on or off a route they had just traveled, whether or not they were on their original path.…”

Non‐verbal and verbal judgements of length invariance by young children

“…Some support for the misinterpretation hypothesis is also provided by the finding of Elkind & Schoenfield (1972) that, when the instruction cannot be misinterpreted on the basis of a perceptual comparison because only one quantity is being transformed, the conservation task is made easier. It should be pointed out however that more recent studies indicate that the ease of the one-item relative to the standard two-item task is not as great as the authors suggested and is less visible in older subjects (see Brainerd & Hooper, 1975).…”

“…Some support for the misinterpretation hypothesis is also provided by the finding of Elkind & Schoenfield (1972) that, when the instruction cannot be misinterpreted on the basis of a perceptual comparison because only one quantity is being transformed, the conservation task is made easier. It should be pointed out however that more recent studies indicate that the ease of the one-item relative to the standard two-item task is not as great as the authors suggested and is less visible in older subjects (see Brainerd & Hooper, 1975).The misinterpretation hypothesis is also supported by studies which suggest that the non-conserver's failure is being determined by what the child believes to be expected of him. Rose & Blank (1974) and McGarrigle & Donaldson (1974) have focused on certain pragmatic, as opposed to semantic, aspects of the questioning and produced evidence that these encourage the child to read the experimenter's intention as being a request for a judgement about unidimensional changes in the array rather than about a perduring abstract property.…”

Le Développement de L'identité Notionnelle

“…Ce caractire structural attesterait fondamentalement une interdependance fonctionnelle et un lien organique entre des operations (ou des fonctions constituantes) qui peuvent porter sur des notions semblables, ou assez distinctes, et relevant de domaines differents (logique et infralogique). Or, divers auteurs (notamment, Acredolo et Acredolo, 1979;Brainerd et Hooper, 1975, 1978Elkind et Schoenfeld, 1972;Nash, 1984) tendent a mettre en cause le caractire optratoire de la notion d'identiti quantitative, et de ce Fait le concept de structure d'ensemble. 11s alltguent, en particulier, le Fait que I'identiti quantitative impliquerait la meme Forme de raisonnement et les mimes mkcanismes d'acquisition que ceux requis par I'identiti qualitative.…”